TQ 9175 SW MAIN ROAD Sheerness Dockyard 933/2/94 Dockyard House and attached front basement 15.3.77 area railings GV II* Commissioners' house, now offices. Mid 18205, by George ledwell Taylor, architect to the Navy Board, and Sir John Rennie, engineer. Yellow stock brick with rubbed brick heads and rendered dressings, central ridge and 2 brick lateral stacks at each end, and slate hipped roof. Late Georgian style. PLAN: double-depth plan. EXTERIOR: 2 storeys, attic and basement; 2:5:2-window range. Symmetrical front with a rendered plat band. cornice and a full attic storey with a parapet. Timber porch has paired pilasters, cornice and blocking course, with architraves to the doorway with double 6-panel door with raised panels. and 9-pane lights to the sides. Flat-headed windows with 6/6-pane sashes with a possibly original outer sash for double glazing; 3/3-pane attic sashes. Outer single-storey, 2-window sections have a thin cornice and parapet. 5-window ends have blind windows to the chimney stacks, N end has a central tripartite first-floor sash with segmental-arched head, S end has a later full-height brick extension one bay from the rear and has lost the front stack. Similar rear with mid C20 ground-floor casements. 3-window outer sections with an early C19 porch 3 bays from the N end with a cornice and round-arched door and windows. INTERIOR not inspected but reported to contain many original features including a good curved central stair with mahogany rail, panelled shutters and doors. and enriched cornices. SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: attached cast-iron basement area railings to front and rear with urn finials and diagonal bars. HISTORY: the house and office of the Commissioner of the Yard, and a matching design to the adjoining officers' terrace, Regency Close (qv). Unlike the other royal dockyards, Sheerness was all rebuilt at the same time. Within the little-altered SE corner of Rennie's model layout, containing the entrance chapel and officers' accommodation, and part of a unique planned early C19 dockyard. (Sources: Coad J: The Royal Dockyards 1690-1850: Aldershot: 1989: 54. 58, 59; Rennie Sir J: The Formation and Construction of British and Foreign Harbours: London: 1851:41; Sheerness, The Dockyard. Defences and Blue Town: 1995:1). Listing NGR: TQ9134775179